‘My apologies. But can we ask some questions?’
‘Hamelin! Hamelin! He can’t be dead! Oh, Christ! Why him? Why us? What have we done to deserve this?’
Cissy shook her head. ‘You want to question people, you find someone who can talk without crying. Come back later. Better still, don’t bother.’
‘What of you? Can we talk to you?’
‘Why has he died?’ Emma burst out. ‘How could someone do it to a man like him?’
Simon was struck by the woman’s ravaged features. If he had been asked, he would have said that she was at least forty years old, and yet he was sure she was not much more than half that. It was the toll that bearing children had waged upon her, the toll of little sleep, of fear that her youngest might die, of her husband being taken from her so cruelly and without explanation.
‘I am sorry about your husband,’ he said with as much compassion as he could.
Cissy tried to hold Emma back, glaring furiously at the men. ‘Won’t you leave us? This girl is in no position to–’
‘Cissy, give me grace! I want to help these men if they can find the murderer of my man! Why should I sit here snivelling while he who has caused my misery dances and sings, knowing he is safe? Let me put the rope about his neck if I may!’
‘Do you know anything of your man’s death?’
‘All I know, I will tell you,’ Emma declared with force. She gently removed Cissy’s arm from before her and walked to her stool, sitting and composing herself as best she might. It was terrifying to have three such men in her room, but she drew strength from Cissy, and from the memory of the sight of her man’s body.
‘Gentlemen, Hamelin arrived here the night before last because he wanted to make sure that our son was well and hadn’t died. The last weeks have been hard for us. Joel has been suffering because we couldn’t afford good food. Then on Friday Hamelin arrived with a purse of money which he said Wally had given him.’
‘I told them,’ Cissy said.
‘That money saved Joel’s life,’ Emma said with determination.
‘You say he saw you the day Wally died,’ Simon said. ‘Did he say anything about Wally’s death?’
‘Only that he saw the Brother Mark up there. Hamelin hated Mark for taking our money and gambling it away. It was because of Mark that he became a miner. He saw Mark with Wally that morning, arguing with him, and then Wally set off eastwards and the monk came back to Tavistock. Hamelin followed after him, and went to the tooth-puller, Ellis, to have a tooth out. Then he came back here to me.’
‘Do you not think he might have killed Wally to rob him?’ Baldwin asked quietly.
‘No! If he would have harmed anyone, it would have been that fat monk. No one else.’
‘What of the night before last, then?’ the Coroner asked.
‘He came home to see how Joel was, as I said, and while he was here, the watchman arrived and told him to go to see the Abbot in the morning – that would be yesterday. As soon as he had risen, he left me to go to the Abbey.’
‘This watchman – who was it?’ Simon asked.
‘We didn’t see him. He told us the message and said there was no need to open the door.’
‘Did you recognise the voice?’ Baldwin asked.
‘No,’ she said with a frown. ‘He didn’t sound familiar.’
‘Were there many routes your man could have taken to the Abbey?’ Baldwin enquired thoughtfully.
‘No. He would have gone along this alley, across the road, then into the next alley. That would take him straight to the place. But he didn’t get there, did he?’
‘I doubt it,’ Simon said. ‘He was ambushed on his way.’
‘By the man who gave him the message,’ Baldwin muttered.
Joce could hear them. God! How many were there? He crouched low, his knife in his hand, listening intently, and it sounded like the whole of the King’s army had come to try to catch him. He still gripped his dagger, and held it out in front of him as he cautiously pressed his way onwards, trying to evade the men, but desperate to return down to the town where he would be safe.
He must clean his hand. The acolyte’s blood had stained him all the way up to his wrist, and he could see specks up his arm. That was from his cut to the lad’s nose, he thought with a flash of pleasure. There was something good in having punished the bastard like that. He might live, but he’d never forget Joce Blakemoor, Joce Red-Hand.
It was a complication he could live without, though, the thought that the lad might survive. Joce had kicked him hard: maybe he had broken his neck? A cracked rib could kill as easily as a sword-thrust, and Joce had managed at least one good stab with his dagger in the shoulder. Not enough, though, he reckoned. The boy had been fit and healthy, well-fed and strong. He could take a more severe punishment than that which Joce had handed out.
Would Gerard’s word stand? Joce was inclined to think it would. If the boy lived to tell his tale in court, that was the end of Joce. Not that it mattered. Without the pewter, nothing mattered. He had no life in the town, no money. Nothing.
He had no choice. Before anything else he must avoid these men looking for him. Cautiously, he made his way along a narrow gully, listening for shouts and knocking as search-parties banged among bushes and ferns to see if he was hiding. It was like a great hunt, with beaters scaring the quarry onward. With animals there would be a line of huntsmen, with dogs or bows, or perhaps men on horses eager to give chase, but here the reason was more mundane. The beaters were hoping to push him forward, up the hill, and out into the open moorland beyond. There he would be easily visible.
That way was madness. He would need a mount to escape to the moors. Instead, he searched for a gap between beaters, and carefully made for it. The line was extended, but the gap between each man was fluid, and it took him some while to spot where he could go. There, a space between one youth and a forty-year-old peasant who looked like his head was built of moorstone.
Joce crawled over to a thick bramble patch and scrambled through it, feeling his woollen clothing snag and pull. Thorns thrust into his hands and knees; one caught his cheek and tore at him, and more became tangled in his hair. He had to bow his head and clench his fists against the pain. He couldn’t, he daren’t make a sound. The beaters were too close.
With a shock of horror he heard a dog. His heart stopped in his breast. Every facet of his being was concentrated on his ears and it seemed that the slavering, panting sound was deafening, smothering all other noise, even the steady whistling and banging of sticks. Then there was a clout across his back as a heavy staff crashed into the bushes above him, and he could have shrieked as a set of furze thorns were slammed into his back between his shoulders.
There was a louder panting, and he opened his eyes to see the dull-witted eyes of a greyhound peering at him, mouth wide, tongue dangling in a friendly pant. A man bellowed, and the dog curled into a fist of solid muscle, then exploded forward, shooting off like an arrow. Joce felt as though his heart had landed in his mouth, it burst forth into such powerful thumping.
Then the noise was past him. To his astonishment, the line had washed over him and now was carrying on up the hill. He was safe!
He carefully crawled from his hiding place, pulled off his coat and knocked as many bramble and gorse spikes away as he could, while walking swiftly down the hill towards the town. Once there, he could fetch clothes and a horse.
His blood was coursing through his veins with more consistency now. Yes, he would escape from this damned town. Over the moors on a horse, perhaps, or south, to the coast. He would be free again.